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ambition
Erica Woiwode received her Master's in Literature & Writing Studies from Cal State University, San Marcos. She currently teaches English at Palomar College and Mount San Jacinto College. Her poetry has been published in Academic Exchange Extra for four consecutive months, L.A. Miscellany (Los Angeles), The Poetry Conspiracy (San Diego), artistic rights and the Cal State San Marcos Pride Literary Supplement. She was featured in the Summer 2004 issue of Turbula.
By Erica Woiwode
Someday, she said,
I will win the war
against inane sycophants
and the things that
go bump in the night –
but right now,
I can't even reach
the sky on my own,
though I want to
with the strength
of a thousand oppressions......
as she scratched
with a stick
her own image
of self-consciousness
into the dirt
and wondered
what he was thinking –
The most important thing,
when it comes down to it,
he said,
is to always hold on tightly
to yourself –
because the darkness,
when it comes,
rips, tears through you
like a startled violin
it ignites every fear you have,
compelled by the desire
to swallow you whole –
and you don't want to lose yourself
in the black madness –
I suppose not, she said,
averting her gaze,
but then I suppose
it is all a moot point,
since I lost all sense
of time and gravity,
of weather and industry,
all notions of color and pain,
the day you walked up to me
and I fell into your mouth.
Published July 2005
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